Magnolias

Lilies

• General & History
• Working with Onions
• Varieties
  • Onions
  • Shallots
  • Garlic
  • Leeks
  • Chives
  • Ramps

Maui Onions
This famous variety of sweet onion is grown on the Hawaiian island of Maui. It is a variety of Sweet Onion but smaller than most of the mainland varieties. It hits the market early in the season so it fetches a good price, lowest cost from May to August, higher from September to April.

Attempts to grow Maui onions on the mainland are imperfectly successful. The appropriate growing climate eliminates much of the country and their unique flavor owes a lot to the red soil of the Haleakala volcano in which they're grown. Even if you live in a southern state and have a recently active volcano in your back yard, continental volcanos probably spew a mix of minerals different from mid-ocean rift volcanos, so you still won't have authentic Maui onions.

Red Onions
Slightly milder Popular raw in salads and and for other recipes where its red color makes a desirable contrast. When cooked most of the color is lost, but it is the most popular onion for cooking on the east coast of India.

Sweet Onions
These are the darling of the hamburger stand. Unusually mild, they are suited to the mass market, they're large so they make hamburger size slices, and they're rather flat, maximizing the number of large slices from each onion. See also Maui Onions.

White Onion
These offer a slightly cleaner, simpler flavor than regular yellow onions but with the same onion bite. Mexican recipes always call for white onions which are traditonal there and for some applications the clean white color is desirable. For cooking there really isn't a noticeable difference between the two so substitute yellow onions if you don't have white.

Yellow Onion - [Brown Onion, Spanish Onion]
This is the most comon onion in the U.S. and generally the lowest cost. In cooking it can be used interchangeably with white and red onions.

[Eschallot (France), Scalogno (Italy), Moo-Seer (Persia), Bawang merah kecil (Malay) Allium oschaninii]

Shallots have a multi-bulb form similar garlic but with fewer, much larger bulbs. Sliced they appear similar to a small red onion. Their flavor is similar to red onion with a touch of garlic blended in. They are sharp with "tear power" that puts onions to shame.

Shallots have been a "gourmet" item in the U.S. and were mostly imported from France and sold for very high prices. This is changing with prices in California (where large quantities are now grown) dropping by more than half in the last couple of years. This was brought on by the large and growing Indian and Southeast Asian population here - shallots are much used every day items in those regions.

There are two varieties available in California, the large, often elongated European style and the small round Asian variety. Both are shown in the photo. The typical European shallot is 2-1/2 inches long, 1-1/2 inches across and weighs 1.5 ounces. The typical Asian shallot is about 1-1/4 inch long. 1-1/4 inches diameter and weighs 1/2 ounce.

What does a recipe mean when it says "One Shallot"? Here's my best estimate based on the shallots available in areas of Southern California that serve particular shallot using communities:

	1-1/2 ounce	European and American recipes
	1/2 ounce	Indian and Southeast Asian recipes

The way I interpret "1 shallot" is, if the bulbs are separate or wrapped together only with paper, each bulb is a shallot. If two bulbs are wrapped together under a layer that's fully living, they count as one shallot. Thus in the photo above, the European at the top and the Asian at bottom left both count as two shallots while the Asian at bottom center would be one shallot.

Elephant Garlic - [Russian garlic, Allium ampeloprasum var. ampeloprasum]
Elephant Garlic looks like a giant garlic head, tastes a lot like garlic, can be used in place of garlic, but it's not actually garlic - it's a leek. The flavor is milder than real garlic and some people prefer that, expecially when it is included raw, such as in salads and salad dressings. Young flower heads can slso be cooked as a vegetable. The photo specimen, shown with two large cloves of regular garlic in front, was 3-1/2 inches in diameter and weighed 6-3/8 ounces.

- [Wild Leek, Ail des bois (French), Allium tricoccum]

Ramps are native to the Appalacian mountain chain from South Carolina north into Canada. They are particularly popular in West Virgina and Quebec Canada. Both the scallion like bulbs and the leaves are eaten and they are described as being like a combination of onion and garlic. Very seasona1, they are available only from late winter through early spring.

While there are ramp festivals in Virginia and West Virginia and restaurants there serve them in season, in most of the country they are available only through gourmet outlets at absurd prices. Commercial production is experimental and seems to work only in a forest setting.

Protective laws are in place in Quebec where ramps cannot be sold or handled commercially, but poachers sneak them across the border into Ontario to sell to restaurants.

• Asparagus is a good source of vitamins A, C, B6, thiamin, folic acid, potassium, and obviously fiber (especially if you don't peel the lower stems). While low in sodium and calories, it is a rich source of rutin and a good source of glutathione (GSH), a powerful antioxidant adn anticarcinogen. It has no fat or cholesterol.

  Asparagus also contains sulphur compounds that cause a noticeable odor in the urine - but many are unable to smell this odor at all. The sulphur compounds have no known adverse health effects.